Young players give Union a foundation to build on

The Union’s Michael Farfan, right, battles Vancouver’s Gershon Koffie for the ball during an MLS game in Vancouver, British Columbia, in July. Farfan said his play at the end of the year gave him reason to be optimistic going into the offseason. (Associated Press)

Had the MLS season ended in mid-September, things might have felt different for Michael Farfan and Jack McInerney.

Farfan was mired in a stretch of one start in six matches, something of a forgotten man in a struggling midfield. McInerney’s once-prolific goalscoring had dried up, the drought’s length stretching into a seemingly interminable fourth month.

The changing fortunes of both players as September wore into October weren’t enough to prevent the Philadelphia Union from slipping out of the MLS playoff picture. But their late surges reshape the discussions for the Union as they venture into a crucial offseason.

The reckoning for MLS teams is always difficult to discern, with the terms of contracts a closely guarded secret per league policy and the mechanisms by which players are bound to teams widely varied.

Logic, rarely the guiding factor in MLS personnel management, would seem to point the Union toward one particular path. With a coach in John Hackworth off his first full season, one in which he put his faith in a bevy of youth that put the team on the precipice of playoff qualification, the common-sense move is to stay the course.

They appear to be set on both ends of the field. Zac MacMath grew into a consistent goalkeeper with 12 clean sheets this season while turning 22. The defense took its lumps but grew as a unit. Three — Ray Gaddis, Sheanon Williams and Amobi Okugo — are 23 or younger; the other is veteran Jeff Parke, still under organizational control after being acquired last season.

Up top, the 21-year-old McInerney is a piece to build around. He scored 12 goals this season, rebounding from a 14-game dry spell to tally twice in the season’s final three games. Together with Conor Casey, the Union have the first tandem of double-digit goalscorers in franchise history.

“It’s a good confidence builder going into the offseason,” McInerney told MLSSoccer.com about his late surge. “Just to get the weight off my shoulders, even though I’m going to get a fresh start anyway. But it’s good for my confidence going into next year.”

Coupled with the sentimentality held for Sebastien Le Toux, the franchise’s all-time leading scorer who added a franchise record 12 assists this season, the money and minutes seem to be decided.

Where the reconstruction of the Union can have its greatest impact is in midfield, where the options are hardest to pinpoint. In the absence of an impact player, the Union chose a variety of formations, arrangements and groupings.

Captain Brian Carroll, who was signed to a contract extension through 2014 before being traded by Columbus, should return to anchor the midfield. But short of him, it could be a bit of a housecleaning.

The understanding of the Freddy Adu-for-Kleberson swap was technically as a “loan” for the duration of the Brazilian’s contract, a two-year deal signed in 2012 that would expire prior to the 2014 season. It’s inconceivable that Roger Torres, with his 68 MLS minutes, will be back at the same six-figure salary.

Though a solid MLS player, injury-prone Michael Lahoud’s value is diminished by his tactical similarity to the omnipresent Carroll, while the company line is that Brazilian Gilberto is viewed as the holding midfielder of the future. Keon Daniel underwhelmed more often than not, contributing no goals, one assist and being limited by injuries and ineffectiveness to fewer than 90 minutes over the last six games.

That leaves the common quandary for Hackworth: Who to place in the attacking midfield role? More poignantly, the question this season gained the addendum of “in the least productive midfield in MLS, statistically speaking.”

Enter Farfan, who struggled through a tough season being shuttled between a variety of positions in midfield that didn’t necessarily suit his skill set. He scored once this season and added an assist, but he delivered better performances in his final few games, going the full 90 minutes in four of the last five (he was suspended for the fifth).

It gives Farfan reason to be optimistic for this offseason.

“The end of the season, at least for me individually was good,” he said. “I feel this season I didn’t have the best year and I could’ve done a lot better, so it was great to have that last couple of games to kind of remind myself what I can do and take it into the offseason on a high for the beginning of next season.”

Though Farfan was unwilling to use the positional changes an excuse, it’s easy to see that a return to a more central, attacking position paid dividends.

“I think it was just me battling with my confidence,” the 25-year-old said. “Once I had a couple of bad games, then it was kind of building on me a little bit, and I knew at some point it would change, and I just had to wait and keep on working hard. And thankfully toward the end of the season, it started working in my favor. I was able to get out of my little funk and help the team as much as I did.”

It remains to be seen if any of the existing pieces — Daniel, Farfan, rookie Leo Fernandes — is the impact player the Union need. There are opportunities to acquire them, for sure. The Union own picks No. 2 (acquired from Chivas USA for Gabriel Farfan) and No. 6 in the MLS SuperDraft. With the Bakary Soumare trade, they have four picks in the top 27. They’ll also clear cap space — $495K to Kleberson, $75,000 to retiring Chris Albright, some savings on Torres, potentially all of Carlos Valdes’ $321,000 if his loan deal in Colombia is made permanent.

The future path, one dependent on youth, seems obvious. But that doesn’t make it a certainty.

“This team really works on youth and building it up,” McInerney said. “The first two years of the draft we all came through and right now it’s kind of paying off for them. We’re getting better and better each year. The expectations weren’t that high this year but I think we kind of made them seem higher than they should have been. So it’s just a good sign, especially going into next year with all the experience we gained from this year. …

“It makes sense to everyone. But you never know what they’re going to do.”